State transportation advisory panel convenes for first time

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- An advisory panel charged with recommending improvements in the state's transportation department convened for the first time Tuesday. And it was clear that some members aren't pleased with the way things now work.

Although the meeting was intended to provide the panel an overview of the transportation department, at least one member entered the meeting seeking to abolish the agency's current administrative structure.

St. Charles County Executive Joe Ortwerth, who is a former state legislator, said the Department of Transportation seems to have little direction.

Ortwerth endorsed Gov. Bob Holden's idea that the department's director report directly to the governor rather than to the six-member State Highways and Transportation Commission. The governor appoints the commission members, who in turn appoint the department director.

He also criticized the transportation commission's current funding priorities, which focus on repairing existing roads.

Supporters of a proposed $500 million transportation tax campaigned for the ballot measure last year by emphasizing public safety. But voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, which members of the transportation commission took as an indication of a lack of public trust in their work.

Stung by the August vote, transportation commissioners created the citizens panel to recommend ways to improve the department's accountability, credibility and efficiency.

The panel is to look at the department's funding sources and expenditures, as well as its operations and the way it is governed. The group is to present recommendations by Aug. 31.

State transportation commission chairman Ollie Gates of Kansas City told the panel that its suggestions would be taken seriously -- both by commissioners and by the public. Gates then left the meeting, to avoid any appearance he was encouraging the panel to lean one way or another.

"I expect that once this is all done, with your objectiveness, the people of Missouri will say, 'That is the way it ought to be done,"' Gates told the panel.

Like Ortwerth, other members raised specific questions about the transportation department's operations.

Citizens commission chairman Jack Magruder, who is president of Truman State University in Kirksville, said part of the poor public perception of the transportation department likely is unwarranted.

"I think there is a perception among many people in this state that something is terribly wrong," Magruder said. But "there is a perception that may not be reality."

Panel member Karen Messerli, the mayor of Lee's Summit, also said the group will have to deal with public perception problems of the transportation department.

"I believe many of them are not accurate, but they are to the person who holds them," she said.